Transacting: Looking at the Thunder’s roster situation

In all truth, the Thunder’s 2011-12 roster will look almost identical to the 2010-11 one that went to the Western Conference Finals. Most of the moving and shaking was decided at the trade deadline when Sam Presti dealt the big question mark in Jeff Green to Boston and then promptly signed Kendrick Perkins to an extension.

Still, there are a few things up in the air. For one, the draft. But we’ll get to that later. In terms of free agency, the Thunder likely won’t be all that active, despite having somewhere in the neighborhood of $10 million in cap space. Of course that depends entirely on the new collective bargaining agreement.

(In fact, just let this be a disclaimer for this whole post: It all depends on the new CBA. You know, what the cap will look like, player salaries, if there’s even a season — that stuff.)

The Thunder have about $49.5 million committed in salary next season. (Here’s where Nick Collison’s extension starts looking so stinking beautiful. Just $3.2 million next year.) Twelve players are under contract for next season. Every important core piece is in place, so really for Presti, it’s about filling in the cracks a little.

Nazr Mohammed, unrestricted free agent: He wants to stay with the team. He’s made that pretty clear. He tweeted yesterday, “For all the OKC fans that keep asking me about my free agency… My goal is to come back to OKC next season. I hope everything works out.”

The organization was definitely happy with what Mohammed contributed. He’s one of Sam Presti’s favorite players and having a veteran presence like him is always good. Especially when it’s a veteran presence that contribute on the floor too.

What it comes down to how the organization views Cole Aldrich though. The Thunder don’t at all see Aldrich as a bust or anything. Yes, I think there’s some legit disappointment that he didn’t contribute more this season, but unlike a lot of other teams, the Thunder have absolutely no problem letting a guy develop for two or three years. But if Aldrich is seen as ready for 8-15 minutes a night, Mohammed would become expendable. Aldrich is already signed and is likely cheaper than Mohammed.

Mohammed’s situation is interesting because I think it’ll say something about Aldrich as well. Mohammed was a helpful addition to the team last season and will absolutely add good backup minutes again, but it’s about the numbers as well as Cole Aldrich’s progress. Wild percentage guess of his return: 60 percent.

Daequan Cook, qualifying offer: The Thunder can extend Cook a qualifying offer of $3.1 million and make him a restricted free agent or let that expire and let him become an unrestricted free agent. Either way, the Thunder can re-sign him. I would imagine the Thunder’s going to let the qualifying offer expire and if they want to pursue Cook, do it as an unrestricted free agent.

Cook though definitely impressed the front office and Scott Brooks with his play. He persevered after a really poor shooting start and then seized an opportunity when he found playing time again in February. And not only that, but he had some pretty good value to the team. He provided a spacer on the outside and in limited minutes where he fit in, was always a weapon from outside.

Now the ideal player in Cook’s role is probably a bit more versatile player, but it’s hard to ignore the value of having a specialist like Cook. He fits in the rotation and is a quality asset. I’m curious though about Robert Vaden and the plan with him. He’s also a specialist by design and with his late season signing, I kind of wonder if he’s auditioning for this role at a cheaper price next season. Wild percentage guess of his return: 75 percent.

Royal Ivey, non-guaranteed: Ivey filled the Kevin Ollie Memorial Position (sans mustache) as OKC’s third string point guard. Like Ollie before him, he’s a terrific locker room guy, a hard working practice player and a wonderful influence on younger players. In terms of unmeasured value, Ivey has a lot of it. Filling out your roster with players like him is always smart. He only made $1.2 million last season and that’s what his number will be for this year too, though it’s not guaranteed. Obviously the Thunder needs a third string point man and I’m not sure there’s a better fit out there than Ivey, so I don’t see him being waived. Wild percentage guess of his return: 90 percent.

Robert Vaden, non-guaranteed: I was as curious about his signing as anyone else. I’m assuming it was more of a reward type situation than anything else. Vaden really worked hard in Tulsa with the 66ers and shot around 50 percent from 3 in the D-League. He was a second-round pick by OKC in 2009 and there a ton of players in the league exactly like Vaden that pushed through and found a spot on a roster. I think Presit recognized that and wanted to have Vaden experience being part of the team. A roster spot was open and it wasn’t going to be filled, so it kind of seemed like a “why not?” thing.

I talked with Presti earlier in the year and we actually spent about 15 minutes discussing the D-League and I came away with the fact that Presti really respects guys battling in the D-League. He couldn’t have been more thrilled for Zabian Dowdell who had just been signed by the Suns. And then later he expressed the same thing for Larry Owens who found a 10-day contract with the Spurs. I kind of think Vaden was a product of that. Now will he be part of the roster next season? I truly have no idea. He’ll be evaluated and will almost assuredly be in training camp with the team. If he impresses, it’s possible. But often times having that 15th roster spot open is pretty valuable and OKC tends to like to be flexibile. Wild percentage guess of his return: 30 percent.

Russell Westbrook, eligible for an extension: This is the big offseason question. Westbrook has already made it clear that he wants to remain with the team. And every indication I have gotten from the team is that Westbrook is still very, very much part of the long-term plan. The organization cared not for all the criticism and chatter about Westbrook’s postseason.

The question is, where does the number fall? Is Westbrook truly a max player? Or better, is Westbrook a max player to the Thunder? There’s no doubt that at 22 years old and coming off an All-Star Game and second-team All-NBA season, Westbrook deserves to get paid. But I’m not sure that was exactly how he was supposed to fit into the Presti Plan. He may have played a little too well.

Still though, you win with your stars and Westbrook is absolutely going to sign long-term in Oklahoma City. There may be some complicated issues that need sorting, but it’ll get done.

Thing is, Presti has to be sure to leave a little room in the end. It’s funny, because he might’ve done too good of a job bringing in talent. The long-term core of this team is Durant, Westbrook, Harden and Ibaka with players like Kendrick Perkins, Eric Maynor and Nick Collison all factoring in as important pieces. But there has to be something left over next summer when Harden and Ibaka are eligible for extensions. So while Westbrook will likely be maxed out, it could be a bit of a tricky situation.

There's one issue that I can't get past when it comes to Russell's advanced metrics. I'm still new to advanced metrics in basketball, having spent my time and attention more on the traditional metrics in the past (speaking of, I appreciate the discussions here and have learned a lot myself). But I have watched NBA basketball for nearly 20 years. When it comes to stats, I try to match up my eye test with what the numbers are saying.

My eye test tells me that Russell is a top 5 point guard, a top 2 athlete at the PG position, who has improved by leaps and bounds. He struggles with his shot, with his shot selection, and with creating good shots for others. Defensively he's just fine for the most part, especially when you give him a specific scheme to run.

But my eye test also tells me that he's playing in a poorly constructed lineup, as a 2nd scoring option, where the 3rd through 5th scoring options are so poor that even a bad shot is better than a pass at times. My eye test also tells me that he is asked to run one of the more simplistic offensive systems that I can remember seeing in the NBA, which works alright in the regular season, but poorly in the playoffs when teams get a chance to focus and plan.

So when the numbers tell me that Russell's usage is too high, that the impact his team has when he is on the floor is down, that his turnovers are too high, that when he is on the floor his team is losing, it just reminds me that it isn't for a lack of talent, but more than likely it's a systemic issue starting with the lineup, and ending with the offense.

In a similar way, KD had some of the worst +/- in the league two years back, but it was more a product of teammates and system than it was talent and execution.

I just can't help but believe that if you replace Thabo with a two way player, and you improve the offensive system by adding some more motion and complexity, and you allow for a healthy Perkins and a mentally improved Ibaka, that you'll see everyone's advanced metrics improve dramatically, especially Russell's.

But you know, the poor results have someone to blame, and I'm more willing to blame the coaching staff at this point, given that those flaws are much more obvious to me.

APM and WinShares and EZPM completely agree that Durant and Collison had the best team impact. WinShares and EZPM has Harden as a strong third member of that leader group. traditional APM had Harden as the 3rd best but far back from the first two. Not sure which is right about Harden but maybe he was in between. I'll go with the 2 out of 3 that he did well. I am also pretty sure that all 3 of these metrics got it right on Durant and Collison. And to me, I think 2 of the 3 metrics mentioned got it close to right on Westbrook, as slightly negative overall rather than dramatically negative on team impact.

EZPM is a play by play based metric that tries to capture shot defense impact. It is very different from APM. But it has Westbrook with the 54th best team impact in the playoffs http://thecity2.com/ and that impact was estimated as slightly below neutral. That may suggest that the traditional APM measure for Westbrook that I cited was noisy and too extreme in its judgment, as it can be for traditional APM mor ethan for RAPM, but its slightly below neutral rating would seem reasonably consistent with my earlier statement that there was a 60% chance that Westbrook true impact was below neutral. Of course it is possible these metrics are both wrong but there right to a negative impact by very different means. And Win Shares also rates Westbrook in the playoffs as below what would be considered league average regular season performance. But maybe all three are wrong about that. Or not.

Yes Thunder S that is an issue. But there is more data available on pairs that could be compared with player data and lineup data. And there are a number of versions of APM & RAPM now too. So it should probably be possible with some work and applying some further statistical theory to figure stuff out better and reduce the really bad errors and assumptions from them. We have much more than single datapoints. The worst errors now or in the past came from looking at single season, single APM datapoints.

@ CrowIsnt one of the main problems with APM/RAPM that it cannot account for the fact that players usually play with a certain lineup, which could affect their numbers? I.e. westbrook mostly plays w/ sefolosha, perk (offensively limited players), and the starting lineup is notorious for having poor execution/not running many plays at all.

If Durant's estimated team defensive impact slipped by more 2 pts per 100 possessions after signing his extension, and that is what the RAPM numbers say, would you be worried that Westbrook's might too or not? I'd be somewhat worried that he might get even lazier than average about fighting thru picks or getting back after not getting a foul call on offense or in other ways. But Presti and Brooks can and will handle Westbrook- and Durant and others- as they see fit.

Single season RAPM (regularized Adjusted Plus /Minus) certainly has error and that calls for caution and use of other inputs but what overall story does this metric tell for the players on the team that went from 50 to 55 wins?

It estimates Durant slipped moderately and mostly on defense. It estimates Westbrook slipped and mostly on offense. It estimated Collison got even better, mostly on offense. Harden got moderately better overall because of offense while slipping a bit on defense. Thabo slipped a little on defense but his offensive impact went from moderately negative to about neutral. Maynor got better on offense by more than he slipped on defense. Ibaka's defensive impact slipped but his team offense impact went from negative to neutral. There are other players but for these 7 guys RAPM says they got slightly better overall, better on offense, worse on defense. That may not be exactly right on all details but I think most of it is close to right and the overall results are consistent with the slight team improvement in the regular season.

Regular season team defense seemed to get worse with Westbrook on the court from 09-10 to 10-11 but, looking deeper, Adjusted Factor level detail suggests he was probably relative unchanged in impact on defense. Defensive RAPM says the main fall-off on team defense was Durant's.

I think his fall in APM raise concerns that he might have gotten worse on overall team impact this season, yes. Might have. If the results are similar on APM (RAPM preferrably) next season that would be a stronger case.

Westbrook boxscore stats improved from 09-10 to 10-11 but his playoff performance fell from last time and his Adjusted fell on both. So you can either accept the assertion that he got better based on the first or you can raise some concern based on falling on 3 of 4.

I see both sides of the coin. While personally I agree more with Crow on this, I'm sure that Russ can and likely will get a max contract. However, I do realize that there's a reason they call it contract negotiations and not contract offers. It's not like you crank the slider up to max, then hit offer, and the agent replies yes or no. If I'm Presti I go into the negotiations first asking what Russ wants, and if the response is "a max deal", my next question to Russ and his agent is, "Is it worth going to teams a, b, and c to get that max deal? Or is winning and/ or staying in OKC more important" and then work from there. If Russ realizes that in order to get that beloved max deal he'll have to play meaningless seasons, it would definitely be the team player move to take slightly less than a max contract in the hope of keeping Harden and Ibaka around for a long time.

The simplest thing to do would be to sign him for just whatever it takes, then keep monitoring his results and the team results with on the court and on the bench and then perhaps make change later if you aren't satisfied.

How much you spend of Russ affects what is left over for Harden and Ibaka. They shouldn't lose either simply for financial reasons but it may not be that simple. Both Harden and Ibaka probably want more shots (for more money and a fuller share of the team credit) and they might make their future decisions based on both money and how well they like being 3th or 4th on shots to Durant-Westbrook and whether they can handle possibly being distant 3rd and 4th to them long-term.

If you paid Westbrook big & early and he then focused more fully on being a team leader - team first guy, that some already see him as being or wanting to be, then it might work out fine.

Considering his health, productivity, improvement to this point, individual accolades, I don't think there's any way he accepts less than the max. Do we get a better player than Westbrook if he leaves for money elsewhere? I wouldn't want to chance that. He was still top five at his position this year. OKC isn't going to attract major free agents, you've got to keep your players.

If you go by his All-Star and 2nd team All-NBA appearance or high PER or scoring level then it probably seems like an easy call to give him the full max.

If you see that new Russ' Adjusted +/- fell dramatically this season from top 20 in the league to estimated just neutral overall in the regular season and to one of the 20 lowest in the playoffs http://basketballvalue.com/topplayers.php?year=2011%20playoffs&mode=summary&sortnumber=94&sortorder=ASCthen you might have some concern about an early and long and huge extension. Just 6.5 assists and more than 4.5 turnovers per game and under 40% shooting in this playoffs. But as I said before I not really trying that hard to change views, just expressing my own.

Russ should be get money like a Rajon rondo 9-10mil/year is ok butif Russ want max or near max .say bye bye with him.i will trade Russ and Perk / Dwight howard .Agree with you Keith if we get Howard we wouldn’t need nor desire a PG like Russ or CP3 too

If we don't give Westbrook the max someone else will. It's not every day that you get players of Durant and Westbrook's caliber sitting in your lap. Whatever the maximum amount the CBA dictates he can be offered should be on the table. If they can convince him to sign for less that's always great, but that's playing with fire. You lose Westbrook, what then? You don't cheap out on your star players.

Mark, I dont think players taking signals from contracts is an issue.The contracts change all the time. KD will know that if Russel gets more when he signs then KD could be worth even more the contract after that.

Collison mad twice as much as KD this year. Bosh tied Lebron for highest paid Heat ahead of DWade. Its not an issue.

if the CBA allows and we don't resign russ i'll be very disappointed in this organization, this years situation and last years with jeff couldn't be more different to me

with jeff his production was dissapointing and he was undersized playing the wrong position with a talented Ibaka playing behind him, who isn't as productive now but has much more raw talent for the pf position. and with that situation with jeff leaving we could hope that hardens offensive production could take the place of his, luckily that happened

with westbrook you have a talented scorer, that sometimes makes bad decisions but has freak athleticism. behind him is eric maynor and maynor may be a starter in this league at some point with a different team but if he's inserted into the starting lineup, i think it's a dissaster

The weakness of the heat is that they are so top heavy. The answer to the question "How does a small market field a team with multiple max contracts?" is "ineffectively." Given the financial constraints, I think we have a two year window to win a championship unless Clay Bennett suddenly decides he doesn't like money.

I don't think it's time for the Westbrook contract value discussion. The new CBA is going to dictate a lot of terms and many of the interesting conclusions (impact on salary cap, future signings/talent retention, etc.) could be rendered obsolete under the terms of the next CBA.

A more interesting hypothetical that doesn't really key in on those topics is how to handle Westbrook's salary in comparison to KD's salary.

First, let's suppose two things: 1) Westbrook will require a "max" contract offer to extend, and 2) most of the current CBA terms carry over. How many calories do you burn trying to adjust Westbrook's contract in relation to KD's?

Do you just offer Westbrook the "max"? Are you comfortable w/ the implicit message that Westbrook is equally valuable to the organization as KD?

Since the "max" contract is based on revenue estimates, it could be that Westbrook's total contract could be higher than KD's. In other words, say next season KD is paid $13.2M and, based on revenue estimates, Westbrook's "max" contract is $13.3M in the first year (which will take effect in the year after next.) Even though KD will be paid more than Westbrook in any given year (since he was extended a year earlier), his total contract value would be less than Westbrook's. Do you expend the effort to make it clear that Westbrook's contract is the same as KD's? Or slightly less valuable?

Do you try to signal anything to Westbrook in the contract? While I agree w/ Jax that our hands are, by and large, tied due to economic/timing issues, the perception will always be that contract value has a relation to organization importance, skill/talent, alpha dog status, etc etc.

Just something to consider. I honestly don't know. On the one hand, I would like to ensure Westbrook is paid less than KD, but I'm not sure how much effort that is worth. He would be paid less than KD in any given season (usually by ~$1M) since KD was extended a year earlier. Maybe that's good enough, but it doesn't feel right.

Crow's idea of heavily incentivized contracts is interesting, but I don't know how you'd structure that to yield positive, organizational results. Seems like it could backfire in a player as talented as Westbrook. If you require X number of assists... would we always want that? Would we want Westbrook sacrificing points for himself that could win a game by forcing assists to players who may not be able to score? We've seen this happen.

This seems like a much more interesting discussion than should we/shouldn't we extend a hypothetical contract and how it will/won't affect a CBA we can't know anything about. This is a more qualitative discussion w/ a quantitative portion that causes a problem.

There is a long, hallowed tradition of small markets being forced to overpay bubble superstars in order to keep them. I just cannot imagine a scenario where Westbrook accepts Rondo money. I have already accepted that we won't be able to resign Harden and Ibaka, both of whom are on track to be top 10 at their position as early as next year. Seriously, in terms of talent and effectiveness who thinks Joe Johnson is a better SG?

Also, I cannot imagine a scenario by which Dwight ends up in OKC short of him specifically seeking it out. That's a small possibility given how much he has stated he respects KD and how much recent history has revealed about "building" a championship team. Anything that Orlando ends up with is going to be a parting gift.

If Westbrook wants to wait for a possible full max offer from the Clips or the Suns in 2012 he could turn down less than the full max from the Thunder but is Sterling willing to pay the full max? Would the fairly frugal Suns go full max on Westbrook or look to settle for cheaper options like A Brooks or somebody else? I don't immediately see a lot of other contenders or near contenders or possible near contenders who is dying to give Westbrook the full max in 2012.

Yeah Jax someone probably will offer Russ the max in summer 2012 if it comes to that, and Russ and his agent may feel they know that now; but that involves them taking the risk of another season and perhaps more criticism and maybe more of it being considered on target by GMs if not fans or the media and it depends on him being willing to go that specific team willing to give him the max. Is there any contender or near contender with enough cap space in 2012 to give him the full max and would they over the other options available to them? I'll have to look further at that.

Is it true if you build a design a certain way and let a guy play a certain way it gets tough to think about losing him. Maybe you are sorta of forced to buy what it takes. Either you stick with him and the design with him playing that way or maybe they should have built a different design or managed Russ into a somewhat different style of play and different stats and maybe a different price tag. Russ taking 12-14 shots a game from the field would probably be cheaper than at 18-20 shots. Rondo level of money. He might be better at 12-14 or even 16 shots per game but he is at 18-20 and why? In part to get paid like guys who shoot 18-20 shots from the field do.

@ BrewMaynor would get burned as a defender if he had to guard cp3/Dwill/rose night in and night out. It significantly hurts our defense.@ KeithMy harden/sef comment was about running a harden pg/sef sg set up. Ultimately, I don't like that trade because of how the team loses it's balance.

@anonymousBetter than Russ and a healty Perkins? I can't think of many deals that trump that offer. It's certainly better than what Utah got for Deron. We're talking about a 2nd team All-NBA PG and a top 3 defender at the center position. I can't imagine any team having anything close to that to offer.

I think the main reason you have to offer Russ the max is because if you don't, someone definitely will, and Russ and his agent know that. If you don't offer the max, Russ doesn't extend and gets the max he wants the next year. Meanwhile, you are left trying to find a way to bring in talent to replace him, max or near max talent, which no team wants to shed. So you either have to draft that guy (which isn't happening at 24), or trading pieces for that max or near max talent. It's not like you can lose Russ and go sign John Wall or Rose or Rondo. You could get in on the CP3 or DWill sweepstakes, but you're committing to some sort of sign and trade, and you're already at a loss as an organization because everyone knows your hands are tied.

So you offer Russ the max not specifically because of his on-court worth, but because replacing him is a daunting task at best, and you'll be doing so without the upper hand.

I don't think there's going to be any fight. All of the Thunder players were picked in large measure for their willingness to put team first. I think that much of what seemed like selfishness on Russ' part was just lack of options. I expect things to be different next season.

@DavidHarden-Sef is already our SG setup, so that doesn't get any weaker. Obviously there is a drop-off at PG, but that's the whole idea. A team starting Dwight and KD wouldn't need nor desire a PG like Russ. Those two would need someone whose top skill is getting other people the ball and only taking shots when open. Maynor could easily fit that role, especially next to Harden who would take over much of the playmaking duties for him.

It simply comes down to what is more valuable: an elite scoring PG or the best big man and defender in the league? Dwight wins that comparison. But like I said, it's never going to happen. Orlando would have to initiate the trade (Presti would never actively shop Russ), and Dwight is literally everything to their team. The prospect of not having him is an end-game scenario that they will never entertain until it happens.

@ DavidStart Maynor, draft a pg, and get a free agent as your #2. I know it won't happen, but it would make sense to me for both teams. Love Westbrook, love him, but I don't want any fights over top dog offensive status. Why not have the best offensive player, and defensive player, on the same team. Might need some more offense from your PF position though.

When thinking about transactions you can look directly and only at that player and make a judgment or you can look at the bigger picture and say what would it be nice to get out of a position and rotation role beyond what we are getting, how could we get it. who could do it, what would it cost and what side effects would it have. You can do it both ways but I would definitely use the second method in addition to the first.

I don't think Westbrook is a full max, extend at the earliest moment player. I think very very few are. That is not hate, that is a basketball opinion. Is he a good value 80-90% of the max player? That's more debatable to me but I'd try harder to sign him to that or a max deal that is contingent on some well-targeted incentives than I would the full and simple max at the earliest moment.